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A study of supernova remnants - material blown out into space during death throes of giant stars - has shown that a bubble of gas enveloping our Solar System is being shoved backwards by the debris of another, more recent, supernova.

Over the last few million years, several stars have exploded within the
Milky Way and they have left behind bubbles of expanding, hot gas that
radiate low-energy X-rays. The Solar System sits within one of these shells,
known as the "Local Hot Bubble". A study using data from the XMM-Newton
Space Telescope has shown that the "Loop 1 Superbubble", the remnants of
some more recent supernova explosions, is expanding faster than the Local
Hot Bubble and is compressing an area of cool dense gas, known as the Wall,
that lies between the two shells. Although astronomers have known for some
time that the Local Hot Bubble has an hourglass shape, pressure and density
measurements from this new study provide evidence that Loop 1's compression
of the Wall is causing the hourglass's "waist".

"The X-ray radiation from the bubbles is very faint. In order to see them,
we've had to remove all the light from stars, nebulae and cosmic rays the
images, leaving only the weak X-ray signal. It's the astronomical equivalent
of looking at an aquarium, ignoring the fish and looking only at the water,"
said Michelle Supper, who is presenting the results at the RAS National
Astronomy Meeting in Leicester.

"We've taken long-exposure images of ten small areas of sky in the direction
of the Loop 1 Superbubble, then removed all the bright objects and studied
what's left. Each structure emits a unique X-ray signal, like a
fingerprint, that reflects its temperature and chemical composition. This
means that, when we come to analyse the images, we can tell which bits of
radiation originated from Loop 1, the Wall or the Local Hot Bubble," Supper
explained.

Together with Dr Richard Willingale, also from the University of Leicester,
Supper developed mathematical models to represent each of the structures and
then produced a geometrical model from which she could work out the
distances to the structure boundaries and the pressure and density of the
interstellar plasma within the structures.

Loop 1 is thought to be expanding because it is being inflated by winds
originating from a group of stars known as the Scorpius-Centaurus
Association. Supper's measurements of physical properties of the Wall
showed that its density increases fourfold, reaching a peak near the most
indented region of the Local Hot Bubble. The pressures also peak around this
point, indicating that the Wall is pushing into the bubble at in this
region. The chemical analysis showed that the highest concentrations of
gases are found at the centre of the Loop 1 Superbubble and levels decrease
dramatically in the expanding shell of the bubble.

"Not many astronomers are looking at these structures at present but this
study has shown there are many more mysteries to solve!" adds Supper. "We
found that X-ray emissions in an area near the galactic plane are much
higher in energy than expected but we don't know yet whether we've
discovered a new X-ray source or whether its an extension of the very high
energy radiation coming from the centre of the galaxy. We hope that this
study will also give us an insight into the distribution of the Galactic
Halo, a mysterious X-ray signal that can be detected faintly above and below
the disc of the Milky Way."

The Local Hot Bubble is a cool, old supernova remnant that envelopes the
solar system and much more besides. It is not spherical, more like the shape
of a bent hourglass or a peanut shell. The edge of the bubble is at least
91 light years away in the Northern fields, rising to 358 light years in the
Southern fields.

The Loop 1 Superbubble is a big, young, hot supernova remnant that is
located approximately 684 light years away from the Sun and is about 895
light years in diameter.

XMM-Newton was launched in December 1999 and is operated by the European
Space Agency. It is the biggest scientific satellite ever built in Europe.

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